Zhané Warren - WARREN EDITIONS

https://www.instagram.com/heliogravure_

https://www.instagram.com/zhanewarren/

Zhané Warren (born in 1976 in Johannesburg) studied Fine Art at Stellenbosch University and earned a master’s degree in Technology of Fine Art from the University of Johannesburg in 2006, supervised by Kim Berman, Leora Farber, and Jeremy Wafer. She received a scholarship and attended Karel de Grote University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. Warren remained in Belgium for five years, working alongside professional artists and printmakers. In 2007, she returned to South Africa as a recognised professional printmaker and founded Warren Editions.

As a visual artist, Warren has staged numerous exhibitions and performances in Belgium, Scotland and South Africa. Her solo exhibitions include Live with Me (KZN Gallery, Durban, 2007), Recurrence (Art on Paper, Johannesburg, 2006), and In Between Here and There (with Robert van Dromme at Contemporary Wei, Antwerp, Belgium). She has participated in many group exhibitions in Belgium, Canada and South Africa. Her work is represented in various South African, Belgian and US collections. She participated in numerous artist residencies and collaborations at the Masereel Centrum in Belgium between 2003 and 2007. In 2019, she visited the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, USA, for an Artist’s Residency focussing exclusively on héliogravure (aka photogravure).

Warren is the master printmaker and founder of Warren Editions, a Cape Town-based printmaking studio. She is a respected printer, a fine art publishing authority, and a passionate educator. Her expertise has significantly impacted South African printmaking. She has trained many printers, some of whom have become skilled printers, running their own studios or working in professional printmaking studios. She has introduced technical improvements that studios, printers and printmaking departments in South Africa have adopted.

In May, 2016, Warren attended the 1st meeting of the International Printmaking Organisation Alliance (IPOA) in China. The China Printmaking Museum, in partnership with the Guanlan Printmaking Base, invited her to join this alliance.

In August and September 2025, she visited Japan to conduct research on washi-making. By visiting many papermills, she gained an understanding of washi fundamentals and production. She stayed with two papermaking families and worked alongside them to process raw materials for washi-making. Warren also attended a week-long intensive workshop at the Awagami Factory, a well-known papermill in Tokashima, Japan.

In addition to collaborating with artists to make prints, she creates her prints in héliogravure, etching and monotype. Warren’s prints portray landscapes in constant flux. Her landscapes function as visual meditations on desolation, impermanence, and perceptual fragility. They depict a natural world that is neither fully developed nor completely eroded, inhabiting a liminal space that suggests both possibility and loss. This blurs the line between reality and imagination. By withholding clarity, her images invite viewers to face the unknown, mirroring the human condition—lost in a vast, uncertain world, seeking meaning in a vacated landscape.

She lives near Kommetjie, South Africa, with her life partner and two daughters.

To browse the selection of prints, click the first image to open the gallery for easier viewing.